(FOX40.COM) — A Placer County jury delivered a verdict for the 2021 case of a man accused of using the online dating application known as Tinder to meet one victim he tortured and another he murdered.
The defendant, 31-year-old Damon Allen Benson of Rancho Cordova, was found guilty of murder, mayhem, torture, and other charges on Tuesday.
In August of 2021 law enforcement reported that Benson held the first victim against her will at his Rancho Cordova apartment where he “extensively tortured” her on multiple occasions. During the investigation, police say they learned that Benson tortured her to get the address of another man she met on Tinder, 48-year-old Cameron Gabriel.
Benson proceeded to the Rocklin home of Gabriel on July 25, 2021, shot, and killed him. Prosecutors said that Benson, Gabriel and the woman met separately on Tinder. The three became involved in a “love triangle, which resulted in jealousy, the torture of a vulnerable female victim and ultimately Gabriel’s murder.”
After an “extensive investigation” by the Rocklin Police Department, the Placer County District Attorney’s Office filed multiple charges of murder, aggravated mayhem, torture, felony criminal threats, false imprisonment by violence, and more.
On Sept. 2, 2021, the Rocklin detectives served the arrest warrant at the Sacramento County Main Jail and apprehended Benson. By that time Benson was already in police custody in Sacramento and facing felony assault charges for a separate case.
The guilty verdict came Tuesday after the jury heard “extensive testimony” from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, a Placer County District Attorney Investigator assigned to the case, the victim, and other witnesses. The case was prosecuted by Supervising Deputy District Attorney Jeffery Moore.
Benson is set to be sentenced on Dec. 5, 2023, at 8:30 a.m. in Department 44 at the Santucci Justice Center in Roseville.